A Fine Selection Of New Books For Black History Month

February 19, 2006|By CAROLE GOLDBERG; Courant Books Editor

The concept of Black History Month has its supporters and detractors. Some say it's a fine way to focus interest on a huge but, until recently, neglected part of American history. Others complain that it's demeaning to relegate this important topic to just one month -- and the shortest month of the year, at that.

Be that as it may, it has become the time that many look to for books on black history and culture that offer fresh perspectives and provocative ideas. Here are 10 books on those subjects worth reading any time of year:

Booker T. Washington In Context

It's been 105 years since Booker T. Washington published his autobiography, ``Up From Slavery,'' which told how the former slave went on to become the founder of the school that later became Tuskegee University as well as an adviser to presidents and members of Congress. Yet Washington's counsel of accommodation infuriated many, and he remains a controversial figure today.

Rebecca Carroll looks at the ongoing debate over the legacy of this often misunderstood figure in ``Uncle Tom or New Negro?'' (Harlem Moon/Broadway Books, $15.95). The book, edited by Carroll, reprints Washington's autobiography in full and contains interviews about his influence with 20 prominent contemporary African Americans, including economist Julianne Malveaux, writer Debra Dickerson, journalist Gregory S. Bell, political analyst Earl Ofari Hutchinson and author John McWhorter. Their varying political and cultural perspectives place Washington in the context of today's thought.

Untangling Mixed Roots

For novelist, poet and playwright Thulani Davis, it all began with an old photograph of a black teenager dressed in a Campbell tartan and an unfinished novel by her grandmother. They inspired Davis to research her genealogy and the history of the Reconstruction period, which led to her memoir ``My Confederate Kinfolk: A Twenty-First Century Freedwoman Discovers Her Roots'' (Basic Civitas, $25).

Davis learns that her great-grandparents were a former slave and a Scots-Irish cotton planter, traces her maternal ancestors to their origin in Sierra Leone, and discovers a branch of the Campbell family that fought on the Confederate side in the Civil War. This is a thoughtful and challenging examination of how Americans define themselves as ``black'' or ``white.''

A Civil War

By Other Means

The anti-slavery forces of the Union won the Civil War, but the battle for true equality for African Americans was far from over, and many would say it still goes on. Historian and Columbia University professor Eric Foner and Joshua Brown, executive director of the American Social History Project, examine the difficult post-Civil War period in ``Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction'' (Knopf, $27.50).

Foner's analysis emphasizes the oft-overlooked role that African Americans in the South took in shaping a new society immediately following the war, relying on family and church. It examines the retaliatory movement against black emancipation, such as the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, and links those volatile times with the civil rights and racial justice movements. The book is augmented by Brown's comments on photographs and graphic art of those days.

Race And The Race

John McWhorter wrote about victimhood and its deleterious effects on African Americans in his 2000 book, ``Losing the Race.'' He's back with ``Winning the Race: Beyond the Crisis in Black America'' (Gotham, $27.50), an examination of black communities of the 1950s, which suffered pervasive discrimination yet were far more stable and safe than those of today. He blames not racism but ``therapeutic alienation,'' which he says grew out of the culture of victimhood, the shunning of education (because schools didn't emphasize ``blackness'') and an irrational resolve to be anti-establishment. He believes blaming racism for societal ills has had its day and better times are coming. This writer is more conservative than many in this field, and his ideas are provocative and worth examining.

Making A New Covenant

Tavis Smiley, author and TV talk-show host, has his own ideas on how to improve the lives of African Americans socially, politically and financially. He outlines them in ``The Covenant With Black America'' (Third World Press, $12.) The 10 covenants include making health care accessible, improving public education, correcting inequalities in the judicial system, promoting community-centered policing and closing the racial digital divide, among others. Each chapter comes with an essay by a prominent black leader, such as former U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher and National Urban League President Marc Morial. This is a practical book, with checklists and resources for implementing its proposals.